Rasta forms the base of reggae music, the vehicle that artists such as Bob Marley used to spread Rasta thought all over the world. This indigenous music grew from ska, which had elements of  American R&B and Caribbean styles. It also drew from folk music, Pocomania church music, Jonkanoo fife and drum bands, fertility rituals, adaptations of  quadrilles, plantation work songs, and a form called mento. Nyahbingi is the purest form of music played at Rasta meetings or grounations. It uses three hand drums of different sizes, the bass, the funde and the repeater. (An archetypal example of nyahbingi is the three LP set from Count Ossie and the Mystic Revelation of Rastafari.) "Roots" reggae explores the themes of the suffering of ghetto dwellers, slavery in Babylon, Haile Selassie as a living deity, and the hoped-for return to Africa.

After Jamaica's independence in 1962, the lack of political improvement and the Black Power movement in the U.S. led to a big Rasta resurgence. In 1964 the body of Marcus Garvey was returned from England for reburial in his homeland. In mid-60s reggae evolved a slower and cooler mode called rocksteady which shifted emphasis to bass and drums. In the late Sixties, Haile Selassie visited the island. Peter Tosh's "Rasta Shook Them Up" commemorated this major event. The fact that the emperor presented him with a walking stick, helped Michael Manley get elected. Manley's term in office started with wide support from Rasta musicians, though his leadership later brought disillusionment. "He Who Feels It Knows It" was one of the first recordings to use the phrase "I & I," which expresses unity between man and God. Ras Michael and the Sons of Negus rec orded such forthright Rasta statements as "Ethiopian National Anthem."

In 1969, Burning Spear's debut album included the exhortation to "Chant Down Babylon". From other artists in the early Seventies came such songs as "Conquering Lion," "Deliver Us," "Rasta Never Fails," and "Africa is Paradise." By 1975, Rastafarian chants were increasingly heard on records and the Wailers were in dreadlocks. With the albums and , Bob Marley became Jamaica's first international superstar. With a population of only two million, the island nation has sent into the world more than 100,000 reggae records over four decades.